Join the tribe of Movement & Calisthenics Athletes – people just like you that are working with their own body weight to get strength, lose fat build muscle, recover from injuries and live their best lives!

This is the story of Philipp- The Movement Athlete

Are you looking for an excellent way to build up your fitness journey? 👊

If so, then you might want to try out calisthenics. Philipp did so and did not regret it.

🎯Looking for the Best Approach to Fitness

“I’ve always been interested in sports but haven’t discovered the right sport for me for a long time. I’ve tried all kinds of sports.“

Philipp wanted to be active. It’s even essential for general health and longevity. Sedentary people are prone to many cardiovascular diseases. Research even shows that active individuals tend to have a longer life span.

The recommended minimum amount of activity by specialists is 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous activity. On top of that, an additional at least two sessions of 📍full-body muscle building is needed. So that’s cardio and strength and muscle development for general health.

“I’ve tried boxing and taking one doll. I’ve tried football and basketball.”

There are many reasons to be active. While the general ones are health, here are some more plus more in-depth breakdown of why you should be active:

• ✊ Lower risks of heart and lung diseases
• ✊ Improved cardiovascular function
• ✊ Better quality of movement
• ✊ Increased brain function
• ✊ Builds muscle and strength for aesthetics and function
• ✊ Better physique
• ✊ More confidence
• ✊ Meeting new friends 
• ✊ A different feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment

So there’s more to physical activity than building muscle and losing weight.

While team sports and contact sports are amazing, they can be lacking in some department that needs special attention. Because these sports are highly specialized, some elements can be left out.

In most cases, resistance training offers up a massive advantage.

Starting Weight Lifting

“And one day, I signed up for the gym and went there 4 to 5 times a week.”

Resistance training is a type of workout that involves working against weights to help increase the body’s capability to produce strength and, at the same time, build muscle. Muscles aren’t only for aesthetic purposes. Its ultimate purpose is for movement and function. This is why resistance training is so vital.

The most ever-popular form of resistance training is weight lifting. And its popularity has its reason: it is effective!

Here are some of the best advantages of using weight training:

• ✅ Straightforward progression – You just have to add more weights and reps + sets
• ✅ Many accessible gyms and weightlifting equipment are available
• ✅ Accessible body of knowledge
• ✅ Numerous scientific literature backing up the best practices
• ✅ Scalable for beginners and advanced
• ✅ Builds absolute strength
• ✅ REALLY effective in building muscle and strength

So Philipp decided to take the plunge and went to the gym. However, he did find some disadvantages for him as well.

🔥 Disadvantages of Weight Training

👎Commuting to the Gym

“The big disadvantage is that you have to drive there.”

While there are plenty of gyms accessible all around the world, sometimes, it’s not always the case. In Philipp’s situation, he still has to commute to get to the gym. His current location isn’t within walking distance of the gym. So he’s not only spending on the gym membership but also on gas. And the biggest difference is the time to get there. Instead of getting pumped up to train, he still has to drive a few kilometers to get there. 

Sometimes, what gets us disciplined enough to maintain a consistent training routine is convenience. Think about it. If you’re given two options: train in your own home or at a gym, but you have to drive, which would you choose? Sometimes, you might feel lazy thinking about commuting and going through the traffic, but if you opt for home training, you can train anywhere.

👎Full Training Spaces

“They are usually always full of people, so the equipment is occupied, which is very annoying for me.”

Gyms are public spaces. You can’t really control the number of people coming in and out. So gyms can get packed, especially during peak hours. And if that’s the only available time you can go, there’s no other way around it.

Unfortunately for Philipp, he often goes to the gym when it’s crowded. And having to wait for someone to finish their sets so you can start working out can throw you off your momentum. 

👎Social Distractions

“I am also a person who loves to train alone because other people distract me.”

Not everyone is the same. Some people love training in a group setting or with other people around, while others would love to train alone. 

Each has its own merits and is very preferential. However, solo training happens to be Philipp’s preference. He can’t train with weights at his home since gym equipment can get expensive and bulky to store in your home.

Read more here: 📍Calisthenics vs Weightlifting

👀Looking for an Alternative: Calisthenics

“So when COVID came, I signed out of the gym and looked for alternatives to train at home. So I discovered Calisthenics via social media.”

At the height of the pandemic, gyms were forced to lock down. And because of the strict lockdown protocols, sports were also prohibited. But Philipp is still committed to improving his health and fitness.

So he searched for an alternative way to train during the lockdown and found calisthenics easily through social media. 

🤸Learning Cool Calisthenics Skills

“And what cool moves you can do there. I fell in love with the sport and started doing it right away. “

One of the main attractions of calisthenics to beginners is the amazing, gravity-defying calisthenics skills. And we can’t blame people for it. We all get hooked and excited seeing these displays of high-level skills.

And it’s not just an unattainable dream. Calisthenics is for everyone, and everyone (granted that there are no limitations such as injuries or other conditions) can eventually learn cool calisthenics skills.

Here are the most popular skills people look forward to learning:

• Planche
• Front lever
• Freestanding Handstand
• Press to Handstand
• Muscle-ups

You can click the link in each exercise to see the ultimate guide for each.

☝️Not Knowing Where to Start

“But the problem was that I didn’t know exactly how to start. “

Watching and getting motivated to start calisthenics is one thing. Knowing when and how to start is another. For beginners, the start of the calisthenics journey can get overwhelming. There is much 📍misleading information on the internet about calisthenics, and many can confuse beginners.

One of the most problematic ones is providing general exercises such as push-ups and pull-ups for beginners without providing a clear path to perform those exercises. Push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and dips are calisthenics basics and are categorized as beginner exercises. However, most beginners don’t even start with even a single rep of push-up. 

This becomes problematic as beginners tend to quit early because calisthenics is becoming challenging and frustrating. Or they will force themselves to perform push-ups with a bad technique that will most likely lead to aching shoulders and elbow joints.

🤕Risks of Injuries

“I wanted to learn the planche and the front lever, but I only was a beginner, and the result was that I kept hurting myself.”

For Philipp, he wanted to learn calisthenics skills, which also required a path to the skill. Even before that, he should already have strong calisthenics basics, mainly the following exercises (we’ll include guides for each one!):

• Dips
• Push-ups
• Pull-ups
• Squats
• Wall Handstand
• Core

Building a strong foundation of strength and mobility will help make the process of learning skills much safer. While proper calisthenics can help avoid injuries, calisthenics can also 📍help treat injuries if done correctly.

“So that was the moment I realized that I needed professional help. That’s when I discovered TMA.”

After understanding the challenges that calisthenics offers, Philipp realizes that he can’t pursue calisthenics alone if he wants to optimize his training and gain as much progress as possible while avoiding injuries.

This led him to search for the best guidance he could get in calisthenics. Then he found The Movement Athlete.

🏆Beginner-friendly and Prepared Structures

“I was amazed at how beginner-friendly and well-structured this is.”

🎯Progressive Calisthenics

The TMA app is perfect for beginners to advanced athletes because the app takes on calisthenics with a progressive approach. This 📍progressive calisthenics allows all exercises to scale to all levels of athletes.

There are sets of exercises for each exercise that starts from complete beginners that lead to the desired exercise. Then, the app offers more advanced athletes another set of more challenging exercises. These are called progressions that keep the workout challenging enough for growth.

Aside from the app’s progressions, it also provides extra challenges by adjusting the reps and sets that keep Philipp working hard in his workout.

💯Structured Skill Pathways

In addition to the progressions, the TMA app sets a clear path for each skill goal. It breaks down the exercise into four elements to achieve faster progress and holistic development when working towards a skill.

👊Strength

The main goal of calisthenics is to develop strength through bodyweight exercises, making the strength element the main component of an exercise progression. This element involves the main exercise progressions, ultimately leading to the desired skill you want to learn.

Strength exercise protocols offer high-intensity exercises with low volume for reps and sets. Then the rest periods are longer to maximize recovery in between sets.

💪Muscle 

When aiming to improve strength, we also need to build muscle. Bigger muscles offer the potential for more strength, which is why we place a different section for this goal.

Muscle-building exercises tend to have low to moderate intensity with moderate to high training volume. And yes, you can build muscles with calisthenics.

Read more here: 📍How to Build Muscle with Bodyweight Only

🤸Skill

The skill element trains multiple elements of an exercise. This prioritizes the movement pathway and mobility aspect required for the main goal. Skill element breaks down the desired exercise into simpler and easier movement pathways so beginners can learn section to section.

The skill exercises tend to be low-intensity with low to moderate training volume. The purpose here is to ingrain the movement of the main goal into your system.

🏃Endurance

Finally, the endurance element focuses on increasing the muscular endurance or your muscles’ capacity to sustain tension over long periods of time. This is a crucial element for safety, especially for the core, because it’s always active during a calisthenics workout.

Endurance work tends to have a lower intensity but is high in the reps and sets. 

This structure breaks down the goals into smaller and easier sections for fast and safe progress in calisthenics.

💥Just like having your own personal coach

“You have a sample video for each exercise showing how exactly you have to do the exercises.“

And because of this type of structuring, your workout will have many exercises. However, like why Philipp enjoys the app, the app will guide you through each exercise as if you have your own personal coaching giving tips and techniques on how to perform the exercise correctly.

✅Program Personalization

Speaking of personal coaching, the TMA app personalizes everything for Philipp. The program is tailored just for him in terms of workout intensity, training volume, and training goals. 

The app can also be personalized in terms of equipment available because why calisthenics can be used without any equipment, it’s still ideal to have 📍SOME pieces of calisthenics equipment to optimize gains.

The training program is also adjusted based on Philipp’s lifestyle. Training duration and frequency can be tailored so that he can easily fit his workout into his busy schedule. This element is underlooked when searching for a program but is crucial to make the workout sustainable and consistent.

✅Adaptive Training Program

When talking about training sustainability, the TMA app even makes the personalized training program adaptive to Philipp. This means that the app constantly gets feedback from Philipp’s current and previous training sessions and adjusts it accordingly to Philipp’s current capacity for training. 

In practice, no one can always give their 100% for their training because every day is different. Daily, Philipp’s energy levels and mood for training vary because of many factors, such as other responsibilities and life that also take up mental and physical energy.

✅Autoregulation

The Movement Athlete App applies 📍auto-regulation, which is a fancy way of saying that the program adjusts based on Philipp’s performance in his current and previous workouts. This keeps the workout challenging enough for Philipp to keep the workouts progressive but not too much that it makes the workouts feel like a chore.

With auto-regulation, it will be too difficult to sustain a challenging workout. Auto-regulation keeps it fun and sustainable for life. The more you can sustain a workout, the better you can get consistent and enjoy the benefits of your training.

And because of this progressive, personalized, and adaptive approach to calisthenics, Phillip is now enjoying these benefits.